RAGE is the latest from id Software, a name you will recognise when you think of Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake, making them more than qualified to tackle the action-packed post-apocalyptic world of RAGE.

The game starts with an asteroid (named the “Apophis”) crashing into the Earth in the year 2029, wiping out most of the human race, the only survivors are those who were frozen into arks before Apophis hit. You play as one of the Ark-survivors, which makes you a target for the Authority, the new governing body and your new enemy as part of the Resistance.

Unfortunately, I haven’t finished RAGE yet  – making this a bit more of a first-impression, than a review – so I can’t get too in-depth with the storyline, but so far it’s rather enjoyable, except it isn’t the sort of game that you would get just for the story, and so I shan’t say much more on that.

The good parts of RAGE include the visuals, which are really nice, despite being ruined by the screen-tearing – which you have probably heard about – and while they’re supposedly more of a Radeon-issue, that’s not much of an excuse. It’s playable, and I still enjoy the game, but I have given up on a real immersive experience as a result.

Another good thing in RAGE is the multiplayer – there’s none for your regular story mode, but there is a Legends mode, where you and a friend (only 2-player) complete missions separate from the story, there’s several of these, but still not enough as they’re all very fun with a mate. There is also an online racing mode, racing here contributes nothing to your single player campaign game, but you can upgrade your vehicle and get more weapons and toys for fighting other people in this online battle mode.

Apart from the screen-tearing, which is simply a technical issue, there isn’t much wrong with the game. At first, I really struggled with changing weapons, as it seems like a console port, with 4-slots for weapons with the rest sitting around your awkward inventory, forcing you to choose which weapons you want ready for switching to and for fast ammo-switching. After several hours, I was pretty much over this as I had a few preferred weapons, though it’s still annoying when I run out of ammo for, say my Authority Machine Gun, so I switch it out for my Settlers Assault Rifle, only letter to go through the same arduous process.

RAGE is fun to play, and that’s what really matters once you start playing a game like this. Enemies move [almost] intelligently, making it satisfying to shoot them when they’re trying to crawl away while still shooting at you. And when you’re bored of the run-and-gun (which early on, there is surprisingly little of), you can do some non-compulsory races to upgrade your vehicle, or there are some mini-games dotted around the settlements, including a card game, which you collect the cards for as you travel around the world.

I quite like RAGE. If you want to compare it to Fallout 3, then the latter probably wins due to it having more RPG-elements (which I personally prefer), but also because of that, they shouldn’t be compared like that.  I find Fallout 3’s story has a bit more to it, but RAGE is newer and plays better, with really pretty graphics. This one is definitely recommended.

Akardo